How did a virtual frog win millions of hearts?
''Have you fed your frog yet?''
As weird as it may sound, the mobile game “Traveling Frog” or “Tabikaeru” with minimal gaming features topped the list of iOS and Google Play Games and Apps. The storm began in China where many young working females would be overjoyed if their frogs returned home. The game was originally designed for young girls, yet surprisingly the vast majority of players are young working adults- mainly women. The number of download easily exceeded 10 million and made the game publisher promise to launch a Chinese version shortly. Despite all the amazing metrics, people are still unable to explain why they play the game and why the frog becomes everyone’s favorite. Here I will break down the hype into several components and analyze the reason for the lightning rage.
1. Gamification
This naughty frog travels around Japan and you never know when it leaves and where it goes next until the frog sends back postcards. Japan is always a travel destination where even frequent travelers can never get tired of. The game sketches many local tourist spots in vivid cartoons and many of those are indeed places you must visit in lifetime.
2. Simplicity and slow pace
The frog does not require you to buy weapons nor slay enemies to upgrade. Instead, players merely need to feed it with grass which you mow in game. The mechanism is similar to the ever heated handheld digital pet- Tamagotchi in 1996. Unlike other heated mobile games, namely Glory of the Kings, PubG and Fortnite, in which one game usually lasts more than 20 minutes, the time spent on raising the rebellious frog is flexible and doesn’t really overlap that spent on other games.
3. Refreshing drawing style
The game inherits typical cuteness of Japanese cartoons and that explains why so many girls are lured by the unreal drawings, giving a break to players who spent long time on those so real and immersive battle royale games.
4. Endorsements by celebrities and influencers
Many celebrities and influencers have shared the postcards sent by their new pets on social media and the endorsements gave a further boost to download rates. Celebrities likes Selina of S.H.E., Ashin of Mayday and Aaron Yan kept posting articles and photos of the games on Weibo and Facebook. Traveling frog is the first ever game endorsed by this many celebrities “for free”. You probably feel isolated if you are unable to join the hype, where everyone talks about it.
5. Have a taste of being a parent
The only things you can interact with your frog are to feed them and get them some accessories. Nothing can we do about it no matter where they want to go nor when they will go home. Only by receiving their postcards or souvenirs can we realize the places they have visited. The mechanism is a metaphor of that parents sending children to overseas or other cities for education in old times where there was no instant messenger or even cell phone. Parents worry about the grown up children all the time and therefore, it is hilarious that some mothers have no intention to play the game at all because they express, “Why do I need to play this game? I have been doing the same thing for more than 20 years…”
6. Collection of items
Some netizens have concluded that there are in total more than 120 postcards, considering different journeys, accessories, traveling partners and the like. The postcards are so well designed that every one of them is optimized to be background wallpaper of your smartphones. The designs of the items clearly demonstrate the perfectionism of the game publisher. In addition, the souvenirs may surprise you because you must not have seen all of the Japanese local specialties before even if you are so familiar with Japan. The souvenirs include cookies, ingredients and other kinds of food.
(Source: Facebook and Weibo)
There are so many memes of this game, which play an important role in building emotional attachment to netizens. However, whether the game encourages kids to visit their prarents more often remains suspicious.
